The Pullar
by Mycroftmalfoy
Summary: Can a child with a rare gift touch the lives of two Hogwarts staff?
1. Chapter 1

Title: The Puller

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am not making any money from this fiction.

Chapter 1

Poppy Pomfry sat in her office about to have a nice cup of tea and a couple of biscuits. If she had caught any of the other Hogwarts staff eating such a lunch, at two thirty in the afternoon no less, she would have harsh words for them. "Do as I say not as I do," the tired healer thought to herself. The last Quidditch match had lasted seven hours, in the pouring rain. Ravenclaw won, but injuries among the players and sniffles for fans and players alike were almost universal. She felt worn out.

Perhaps it was time to consider an assistant healer. She had seen twelve apprentases through their training, an impressive number. Never had Hogwarts had another trained healer during her tenure there. If she was honest with herself, it was not help she needed but company. She had only a few distant cousins whom she rarely saw. She got on well with faulty but did not truly feel she was more than a colleague to any of them. Minerva was about the same age but their two strong personalities precluded close friendship.

The door to the infermary opened. She supressed a sigh.

"Madame.." called a timid voice.

"In my office."

A small face peered around the door.

"Are you ill or hurt?" Pomfry asked, taking care to make her voice gentle.

"I, um… need to talk to you, please?"

The child was obviously a first year student. Pomfry could not recall a name. She often didn't know students who had not been ill or injured. She kept an eye on the new Ravenclaws to see if there were any potential healers but rarely noticed other students. She tried to remember the sorting, five moths past. A Hufflepuff, she thought, but the girl had been a bit plump and very healthy looking in September.

The girl in front of her now was thin and pale. Her hair looked dry and brittle. Her hands shook a bit.

"Would you like some tea and something to eat." The question was equally to offer comfort and test for a potential eating disorder.

"Yes, please. I'm Ariel Spinnet."

After the child has been provided with some very sweet tea and several biscuits, the healer asked what the girl needed. Poppy noted with some relief that the girl seemed to be eating readily enough. "What can I do for you?"

Ariel sighed and the pinched look returned to her face.

"Just start at the beginning, dear. I've heard it all before so nothing is a bad as all that."

"I'm a Puller," the girl stated confidently. "The first in my family for four generations."

Pomfry almost dropped her cup in shock. "That's not possible. I have only met one in my career. Its so rare! Are you sure? How..?"

"I found out when I was three."

"That young!" the puzzled healer exclaimed.

"I went to visit a cousin in a muggle hospital. There was a boy crying in a room down the hall. He was about six, very sick and in a lot of pain. The tears were pouring down his face and he was alone. I went into the room as soon as my Mom was distracted. I hugged him. I fainted from the pain. I don't know how he stood it. When the nurse came, he was smiling. He was too little to be worried about me. He was pain free for almost a week. I came to, tired and aching but not in agony, about three hours latter."

"Did anyone in your family know?... what you were?"

"My mom had some veg memories of her Gran but even she hadn't really under stood or controlled the gift."

"I am surprised to hear you call it a gift. The other Puller I knew called it a curse. She wore gloves all the time and never got close. To anyone." And the healer added silently to herself, she was committed to the Psychiatric ward at St. Mungos.

"I have learned to touch others in pain without pulling their pain, physical or psychological into myself. Actually that why I came too you. I need to learn more."

"If you know how to block that transfer of pain, what can I possibly help you learn? According to my reading, most pullers can't prevent the pain of those they touch from entering their bodies. That you can do that at eleven is miraculous."

" I want to learn to take some pain but not all from another person. I need to help someone but I think the pain he bares would kill me if it all flooded in."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Ariel had thought long and hard about approaching Madame Pomfry. She had never reveled her gift, and it was a gift, to anyone other that her parents and brother. Although they did not know why, those in pain were drawn to her. In the Hufflepuff Common room, sixth and seventh year students would often sit with her. She was sensitive to the body language that accompanied depression, the posture and facial expressions of those in physical pain. She know things an eleven year old shouldn't; the telltale signs of alcohol or drug abuse, what type of cuts and scars long sleeves covered. Those who were happy and healthy were simply crowded out.

Away from her family, this alone was wearing her down. She ate less and often had trouble sleeping.

But one person simply overwhelmed her. Never before had she felt pain radiate off another person. She had been dizzy entering the potions dungeon the first time. Sitting in the back of the room helped a little. Even so , every nerve tingled. When the class finally ended, she ran to the girls lavatory and vomited like she would never stop. Suddenly exhausted, she went straight to bed.

It went on for weeks. She found a quiet girl named Honey to help her learn the weeks Potions lesson, since she was all but unconscious during the class.

"He scares me too, but you have to find a way to pay attention in class. You really can't learn Potions from a book. I glad to help, but you need to pull yourself together."

Ariel stared at Honey. It had never occurred to her that other students were afraid of Professor Snape. I guess he is intimidating, she thought with a small smile. Honey was looking at her strongly. "I'll try," she reassured her friend.

She limped along this way until November. Then, the detentions started. Two , sometimes three a week. They were torture. Alone in the potions dungeon, writing lines or scrubbing cauldrons, Professor Snape was no more than a few feet away. Thank Merlin, he never touched her. But she could not block the pain. It was an aura around his body. Her empty stomach churned as she cried herself to sleep feeling a despair she couldn't understand.

To add to the problem, other Hufflepuffs were growing impatient. They could not understand why she was loosing so many house points. No one was sure why she had so many detentions, but the results weren't good for their house. Only those is the greatest pain would sit with her at meals or in the library, never suspecting why her company appealed to them. Of course, her detentions were caused by the same thing.

The turning point had come on a rainy January morning. Arriving in the dining hall late after another restless night, the only remaining seat had been close to the faculty table. Professor Snape had been sitting adjacent to the Hufflepuff table. He played with his food, mostly drinking coffee and staring into space. She couldn't eat, not a bite. Suddenly the realization hit her. What she felt was simply overflow, in all likelihood a very diluted version of the pain he must feel. How could anyone live like that day after day?

Who could help her? Who would believe her? Who might understand her need to help, to heal, even at great personal cost? Miraculously, the answer walked in and sat down at the staff table. Who could understand the need to heal better than a Healer?


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Like the Ravenclaw she had been at school, Poppy Pomfry was sure the answers lay in books. She searched with a single-minder devotion she had not felt in years. Literature on Pain Pullers seemed as rare as the real thing. It was a genetic abnormality and could not be learned. There were few cases where a person exhibited the ability before adolescence but the were a couple of examples of children as young as five beginning to absorb pain from others. The ability to block pain while touching the person was the exception, not the rule. Try as she might, there was no information on taking part of another's pain in controlled amounts.

"There has to be another angle, something I'm missing." She took a deep breath and told herself to start again. Ariel would not reveal whose pain she was so concerned about. She said she had never touched the person, that the pain actually seems to overflow the body. Why? Was it simply more pain than most felt as Ariel had assumed or was there another cause?

The answer to this question was sadly, very easy to find. The evidence was anecdotal but fairly abundant. Many seers reported seeing a blue-green aura that seemed to burn around some chronic pain patients. These patients varied in many ways but had one thing in common. All had experienced long and repeated exposure to the Curtatios curse. A brutal reminder of the recent war.

As she read, her horror grew. The patients reported random reoccurrences of the extreme pain the curse had brought them . They were depressed. There was some degree of pain all the time, everything from dental problems to headaches to muscle pain. Standard spells, charms and potions did not help these intervals. The prognosis was not good. Eventually, these people could not function and were cared for in institutions or by family. Someone in the small world of Hogwarts had a wrenched life, one doomed to worsen with time.

"First things first," she told herself firmly. She had to confirm her hunch that the Hogwarts "patient" was suffering the same cause. Poppy had an idea. She flooed Headmaster McGonagall and was immediately invited to her office. "Gummy bears," she told the gargoyle and was admitted.

"Please sit," McGonagall invited politely.

"I need to take Ariel Spinnet to London for a day," she began urgently.

"I see. Can you tell me why?"

" I don't think so. There are confidentiality issues. It very complex…"

"Permission granted," McGonagall murmured quietly.

"Thank-you , replied the weary healer. She rose and turned to leave.

"Poppy, to confirm a hunch is sometimes a very good reason."

The healer shook her head as she walked sown the curving staircase. Minivera became more like Dumbledore every day.

Two days later Poppy Pomfry and Ariel Spinnet flooed to St. Mungo's and visited a secured ward. Frank and Alice Longbottom sat in comfortable chairs. Alice spotted Ariel and said, "Neville its been so long!"

"Its good to see you mom," the companionate child replied, "don't come to close though, I have dragonpox."

"You look fine but didn't you have brown hair?" Alice looked confused and doubtful.

Poppy handed her a box.

"Candy!" Alice said happily, completely distracted.

"Come along Neville, you look a little pale and tired. You need your rest." Poppy said to Ariel in a falsely cheerful voice.

Both visitors left with tears in their eyes.

A short conversation in the coffee shop confirmed her suspicions. Both Longbottoms projected pain outside their bodies. Poppy felt thrilled they were on the right track but Ariel was very subdued.

"What's wrong," asked the worried healer when she saw tears threatening to fall from Ariel's deep brown eyes. "Was it hard to feel their suffering? "

"Yes, but its worse than that. The person I want to help is suffering more than both Longbottoms together. If I can't learn to take some pain, he will live out his life in a place like this." And with that pronouncement, her tears began in earnest.


	4. Chapter 4

,Chapter 4

Severus Snape sat in his personal potions lab. It was two in the morning. He could not remember sleeping more than four hours in a night. The pain potion he worked on was the forty-third and he did not believe it would relieve his pain better than any of the others. All his skills, a lifetime of learning amounted to nothing.

If pain didn't wake him, the nightmares would. "At least," he thought to himself, " one has nightmares alone in one's own room." The pain episodes struck without warning. Pain as real and devisstating as the curse had been. The expression often mistaken for anger, hostility or arrogance was nothing more than trying not to cry like a first year missing his Mommy. During his time serving the dark lord, he had suffered beatings, broken bones, even whipping but those pains were nothing compared to the crutatious curse. Now that pain overwealmed him at least once a day.

He concentrated on his potion more to distract him than any real hope it would work. But still his tired mind wandered. He had a couple of fourth years who were disruptive during potions class. He spent several enjoyable minutes dreaming up unplesant tasks for their detention. "And as for that little Hufflepuff girl…" He stopped. Why had he given her detention? He couldn't remember.

She was a funny little thing. Irrationally, he wished she would sit near the front of the classs. Maybe a seating chart? Why did it matter? It mattered! She was pretty and smart but not enough to distinsh her. She was not in any way special and yet he found himself thinking of her, his eyes roaming the dining room looking for her and he looked forward to first year potions class. He didn't like grown women sexually, much less girls. Yet, there was that type of hyperawearness. That irrational pull toward a virtual stranger.

The sound of a throat clearing made him look up. Poppy Pomfry stood in the doorway.

Learning had taken most of February. At least since they start practing together, Ariel looked healther. He hair shone and she had gained some weight.

"Picture a tube," Pomfry has instructed. Ariel complied, noding her head. "OK, make it smaller." Again a nod. "Squeese it closed." Poppy had no idea if this type of visualzation would help but it was all she could think of. First, she had approched profesor Flitwick. Aside for having chronic back pain, he was a friend, a fellow Ravenclaw and could be trusted to be discret. At her request, he skipped three days of pain potion and met Ariel and Poppy in the infermary.

"The goal is to feel less pain but still feel some." To his credit, he didn't ask questions about his new, and apppapently incomplete treatment. "Close your eyes and relax." He felt the lightest touch on his arm. The pain started to diminish. "Stop." The word was almost a whisper. The pain stayed at the same level and he told Poppy so.

"Is it coming back?" Pomfry seemed unusually anxious.

"No, it got better at first but now it neither worst nor better. Really Poppy, I know you like to do a little reasearch but this doesn't seem efficient."

"I'm sorry Professor," the healer replied. " I"ll get your pain potion."

"No," said a small voice he couldn't place. The girl he assumed.

He opened his eyes to find the small first year holding his arm. He was about to pull his arm away when suddenly he was pain free. "What in the name of Merlin…?" exclamed the starrtled professor.

"I used the big tube!" She laughed, Poppy laughed and Flitwick gave a poilte but puzzled smile.

" You will still need that potion," she paused dramaticly, " in about a week."

He agreed to let her know when his treatment wore off and his pain returned. He shook each of their hands graciously and left to the sound of feminine laughter.

Not every attempt was quite that successful. Ariel treated patients in a pitch black room. A sixth year with a broken feamer caused her to pass out, unable to slow the flow of pain. Wilks, however was pain free while his leg was healed. A slythern with a toothache produced similar results, although she remained concious. She was again successful with a quiddich player with some brocken ribs. Ariel was able to stop twice before finally relieveing the puzzled player's pain.

The rumers about this new technique spread like wildfire. To preserve Ariel's privacy, the lessons had to end. Ariel wanted to keep going but the healer was adament. Someone would find out.

The two companions sat together in Poppy's office the first Saturday in March. They went through the case files again. Why could she have such good control sometimes but not others. "Maybe it's the weight of the file," joked Ariel, hefting the two thick files of her succesful patients.

"Acctually, you may be close," Poppy said thoughfully. At first, I thought you were bettter with chronic pain rather than new injuries, but our broken ribs shoud have put you out for hours. A thick file means somone is accustomed to pain. A thin file means pain is a new experience. I think along with their pain, you abosorbed some of their self-control.

"Then its time," Ariel stated decisivly. My 'canadate' has more self-control than any one I have ever met."

"Are you sure you want to gamble you health or even your life on my guess?"

"Yes. I trust you and we would wait forever if we wanted certianty."

"Then the time has come to tell me who it is. I might have a hard time convincing this person to seek treatment. Someone who has suffered alone so long might resent this intrsion into his life. He may become angry or hostile."

"You have no idea!" Poppy looked at the child's grim face. That's when the penny dropped. She braced herself to go talk with Severous Snape.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

"What do you want?" The voice was forbidding. Black eyes bored into the healer's blue ones.

She swallowed reflexively, betraying her nervousness. Forcing confidence into her voice she said, "read these and report to my office tomorrow at two."

"Why would I do that?"

"If you are not there, I will go to McGonagall. She must suspend you for one week if I say you are medically unfit to teach. Of course, it could be much longer if she agrees with me…"

Snape sat perfectly still and remained silent. Pomfry tossed the articles she had been tightly clutching onto the desk and left without another word.

She shook her head as she march down the hall. For once, her compassion failed her. How could a child care enough to want to heal him. She felt a new respect for her young protégé, her friend.

The two sat in companionable silence in the Healers office. It was one forty –five. Aside from learning to better use her gift, Ariel had helped out in the hospital wing for the past few months. She was devouring textbooks meant for Newt level students; a born healer.

Pomfry approached the exhausted subject once again. "Are you sure you want to take this risk…?" The two had quietly celebrated Ariel's twelfth birthday the previous week. In her heart, Pomfry knew the child was mature enough to make this decision, understood the risks.

"Wouldn't you relieve that kind of pain if you had the ability?" the child asked quietly. There was no challenge in her voice, only a quiet certainty. Pomfry was spared answering by a knock at the door. It was two o'clock.

"Enter."

Professor Snape came in and sat down in the remaining chair without waiting for an invitation. He cast a puzzled glance at Ariel but remained silent.

"You read the articles?"

"Yes."

"You are aware of the long term effects of repeated exposure to the Crutatious curse?"

"I assure you," he replied coldly, "that I am more aware of the effects of the Crutatious Curse than you will ever be. I also know that there is no cure, so I assume I am being manipulated into being a lab rat for some article you wish to write?" His voice was so cold and emotionless it sent a shiver down the Healer's spine.

Pomfry bit back a sharp reply to the cruel accusation. Falling back on years of training, she answered in a neutral voice, "there is no cure, but there may be a treatment."

Snape sat up straight in his chair. "Go on," he said in a disinterested voice.

"Its experimental and it will not leave you pain free. You will require ongoing treatment for the rest of your life. There are no guarantees…"

"Just hope," a small voice added from the corner.

"Hope?" he asked, sounding as though he had trouble even forming the word.

"You know Miss Spinnet. I believe she has served an extraordinary number of detentions with you?" A nod.

"She is an exceptionally talented puller. And for reasons beyond my understanding, she wants to help you."

Snape looked at the child who was now looking down shyly. An unreadable expression passed over his face. "Pomfry, have you lost your mind? What are you asking of this child?"

"Nothing!" Ariel replied, looking the stern professor in the eye. "I begged to be allowed to do this. If you won't agree to it in the hospital wing, I will do it passing you in the hall. I won't go on being subjected to your pain, watching until you go mad or.." her voice broke. She drew a ragged breath. "Or die," she continued more calmly.

"You fell the pain now? He sounded genuinely interested.

"Yes. It fills every room. It is nearly chocking me now. Please let me help." Her voice was calm, almost as cold as his.

There was a full minute of silence. "Yes, please." A single tear trickled down the man's face and both females pretended not to notice.

A/N Thank-you for the reviews and wonderful ideas. This story was planned to be short and limited in scope, however, there is already a rough outline for a sequel. The next Ariel story will deal with some broader implications of her gift. The next chapter will be up soon, please keep reading.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

The date was set for the following Saturday. Pomfry had given Ariel a sleeping potion each night for the rest of the week and allowed her to stay in the hospital wing. The two had spent the days working side by side since she had arranged for Ariel to be excused from classes. On her advice, Ariel had blocked out all the patients' pain, even wearing gloves as a precaution. The compassionate child had found it hard to watch suffering so closely and not help, but she would have to adjust if she wanted to work as a Healer one day. Even without her gift, the child showed tremendous promise.

"Let me finish the filing," she offered a tired Pomfry on Friday afternoon.

"No. It can wait for next week. Tonight we are going to eat a large meal in my private quarters and then you will come back here and get a good nights sleep." Ariel smiled at her voice. It was not adult to child, employer to staff member or teacher to student. It was the tone Ariel imagined a loving older sister would use. Finally, Hogwarts was a home to her.

Professor Snape was pacing in his office. He had hardly slept or eaten for days. It won't work he thought. Could it work?. He forced himself to calm down. Pomfry had explained that his self control was essential to making the procedure safe. Safe? He knew it really wasn't safe. What if he had one second of inattention and let pain flood into the child.

He could not escape the memories of the many he had tortured and few he had killed as a death eater. He saw their faces in his nightmares. Guilt was part of who he was now. If he killed this innocent child while she tried to help him, he could not carry that burden. He would have refused to take the "treatment" but he believed the child might grab his arm in the hall or classroom as she had said she would. At least in the Hospital Wing there was a chance of her not suffering permanent damage

Enough he told himself firmly. You will not wallow in self-pity like you did as a teenager. He went to the Potions lab and began to brew an arthritis potion for Professor McGonical. He always disguised it as candy, so neither had to acknowledge the sign of age. It was an act of faith, since the potion took a week to brew. He felt a calm come over him as he gathered ingredients. If he harmed the child, he would not allow himself to live to see the potion completed.

Saturday morning came all to soon. Pomfry transfigured two comfortable armchairs in her office. She set up monitors to measure both heart rates. She could not stop fussing with things on her desk. Ariel placed a calming hand on hers. "I want you to step out of the office during the treatment,"

"What.." sputter the shocked Healer. "NO! I won't allow…"

Ariel cut her off. "You are too tense. I am picking up your discomfort and you may distract Professor Snape as well. And besides, I don't want you too be implicated if anything goes wrong. You are the first friend I have ever had. You don't want anything from me. You have relieved my pain. Please, let me make you safe, just in case."

The healer stared at the child. Those eyes were not the eyes of a twelve year old. She recalled how young some of the fighters had been at the Battle of Hogwarts. How young some of the casualties had been. She nodded slowly. "I guess its your decision to make." She touched Ariel's shoulder but did not say more.

Snape arrived precisely on time. His manor did not show any sign of worry. He sat down and stretched his legs as if it was his own office. "Well?"

Pomfry laughed. Snape was Snape even in these bizarre circumstances. "Take off your jacket and role up your sleeve," she ordered when she had regained her composure. She gave Ariel a quick hug and left the room.

He did as he had been instructed but did not look at Ariel. He was startled when she spoke. "I try to picture the pain as moving through a narrow tube. Perhaps you could use that image as well."

"That's fine," he answered indifferently. Then, he felt the small warm hand on his arm. The muscle aches were just gone. It was then he could fell the pull Ariel's gift had been named for. The agony of the Curtatious curse was there in his body and then it started to ebb. He could feel it move to his arm and out through his skin. For a moment he was caught off guard by the sensation of being rescued. The very thing he had dreamed of as a child abused by both parents. The hope he had when he approached Dumbldore wanting to escape being a Death Eater, only to be condemned to a worse fate as a spy. He was being saved. Although there was still pain, he felt euphoric.

He panicked, suddenly remembering where he was. He wrenched his arm away and pictured a tube being closed off. Ariel slumped in the chair beside him. She was socked in sweat, pale and shaking but conscious. He longed to comfort the child but had the presence of mind not to touch her. "Pomfry, get in here!"

The healer rushed into the room and took the child into her arms. By that point, she was sobbing hysterically. "He was just a baby." Ariel repeated the phrase over and over.

"What is she talking about?" demanded the frightened healer.

For once Snape was at a loss for words. " Get out," Pomfry shouted. " Now! "

When the child was calm, Poppy asked gently what had upset her. She had never reacted that way to other treatments. Even when she had become unconscious, she had not been hysterical.

"Pictures," she replied tightly. "I could see painful memories. It has never happened before."

"What did you see?"

"I can't tell you. I may not be a Healer but I have learned from the best. I won't betray my clients confidence, especially since it was unwilling."

Poppy sat in her office and put her head in her hands. She wanted to protect Ariel as a child, respect her choice as a friend and colleague and punch Snape just on general principle. She went to her rooms, poured herself a large Firewhisky and went to bed before she did anything she would regret.

Snape waited until the Healer was asleep in her quarters before sneaking into the Hospital wing. It took all his abilities to get past the wards which had been put in place to keep him out. He know he had to see the child.

She woke instantly at his approach. "Thank-you." She nodded in acknowledgment.

"Do you need to talk?" Again, a nod." He waited.

"Who was he?"

"Michael Woods. His mother was a member of the Order of the Phoenix. He was four."

"You killed him." It was not a question.

"Yes I'm sorry, I did not mean to let that image, that pain, get to you. I'm so sorry."

Ariel met his gaze. "Eventually, I will see all of them."

Snape was appalled "No. I cannot allow this to happen again."

"Yes you will. Those people are dead, I cannot help them. I will not let you die when I can save you. You deserve to live."

"How can you say that knowing what I have done.?"

"I know you as no one else could. Guilt is your greatest pain. I know only a fraction of how you have suffered. Let me rescue you because no one ever did."

Epilogue

Two years later an unlikely pair stood at Michael Wood's grave. Not a word was spoken. A fourteen year old girl took the hand of a middle aged man dressed all in black. Both shed their silent tears and vowed to make lives that would honor the memory of that small victim.


End file.
